Lion Air will be receiving six more Boeing 737-900ERs this year and will start taking delivery of ATR aircraft.
The Indonesia carrier today has 23 737-900ERs but at year-end will have 29, Lion's president director Rusdi Kirana, tells ATI today in Singapore.
Earlier this month the US Export-Import Bank granted financing support for 30 of the Boeing 737-900ERs Lion has on order.
Rusdi says Exim is very important for providing guarantees and Citibank has already provided financing for seven of the 30 aircraft to be delivered.
It is speaking to other financial institutions about getting commercial financing for the other 23, he adds.
While Lion continues to grow its 737-900ER fleet, in July Lion's Wings Air unit will start taking delivery of ATR 72-500s, says Rusdi.
He says at year-end it will have five ATR 72-500s and next year it will receive five more.
In November Lion signed a memorandum of understanding for 10 ATR 72-500s with options for 10 more.
"We have not yet signed the final contract" for the ATR aircraft but aim to "at the end of this month," says Rusdi.
He says: "We are waiting on news from the export agencies" of Italy and France.
Rusdi also says it has signed a letter-of-intent with Canada's CAE to purchase an ATR flight simulator. Wings Air and third-party customers will be using the simulator in Indonesia, he adds.
Lion plans to transfer some 737-900ER first officers to the ATR operation and train them to be ATR captains, says Rusdi.
Once the pilots have gained experience captaining ATRs, they will later become 737-900ER captains, he adds.
Wings Air already has three Bombardier Dash 8-100 aircraft and plans to retain these because it owns the aircraft, says Rusdi.
But this year Lion will phase out its last Boeing MD-82 although it will retain its five Boeing MD-90s because these aircraft fall under an agreement that goes through to 2012, he says.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
